Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Freak Kitchen
Label: Thunderstruck Records
Release: 2014
Running time: 47:40
Rating: 4.5/5
What have the Swedish guitar megalomaniac Mattias IA Eklundh and his Freak Kitchen partners in crime, bassist/backing vocalist Christer Ӧrtefors and drummer Björn Fryklund, cooked up this time? Nothing less than a proper pagan musical kitchen, where a sky-high level of technical wildness, otherworldly guitar improvisation freak-outs and socially critical lyrics seasoned with typically Swedish humor float in an incredibly thick sonic stew. Since day one, Freak Kitchen have been mocking every corner of the modern capitalist system, and they learned a huge amount from the great Frank Zappa (never forget who the first musical ‘freak’ was), which is basically the highest compliment you can pay their socially satirical, often absurd and grotesque lyrics.
Eklundh, the mad guitar-virtuoso trickster and Freak Kitchen’s lead singer, who runs his own guitar school right in the middle of a forest, hurled elements of hard rock, prog metal, avant-garde, funk, pop and fusion into his band’s raging melting pot on »Cooking With Pagans«. His terrorist-yet-always-lucid guitar escapades are front and center, just like on earlier Freak Kitchen albums, so all his devotees can once again ‘bat their eyelashes’ during the solos, swept up in an ambient experience of ‘close encounters of the third kind’. True, Eklundh, who’s been a ‘freak’ since the age of eleven, when he first saw Frank Zappa on stage and decided to devote his whole life to playing guitar, is the main star of this guitar-driven outfit, but Ӧrtefors and Fryklund, who have been with Freak Kitchen since 2000, are a chapter of their own with their rhythmic sessions.
»Professional Help«, which came out as the first single from »Cooking With Pagans«, is a totally unique creation compared to the rest of the album, which has at least as much in common with alternative rock as with hard rock and metal. It’s actually the (deliberately) most commercial track on the record, with Eklundh going for a brutal vocal approach in an alt-rock chorus, backed by a dirty guitar riff and crushing drum crashes, while melancholic arrangements rule the rhythmically calmer sections, making for an interesting mix of fury and subtlety.
»Freak Of The Week«, where Freak Kitchen brilliantly combine metal aggression with melodic-rock sophistication, opens with a dark, dirty riff greased by a racing rhythm, before an unexpected shift into a melodic section with a lovely chorus propped up by effective backing harmonies. The variability of Eklundh’s vocals is not far behind that of his crazy, often ‘supersonic’ guitar improvisations, when he frequently just loses the plot and checks out into his ‘parallel world’.
The already almost proverbial Freak Kitchen humor gets even more room on the hard rock cut »Sloppy«, which is ruled by a dirty, bluesy riff and a mocking chorus with irritated vocal outbursts. In slightly self-ironic lyrics the band pokes fun at a society completely obsessed with outward appearances, and at their own expense too, since the members of Freak Kitchen, luckily for their fans, can hardly boast of being a model of visual and mental discipline. »Goody Goody«, which puts dirty guitar phrases and a funky rhythmic pulse up front, while a goofy chorus strongly evokes the dimwittedness of your average American sports fan, boasts even more twisted lyrics than its predecessor. All the while, Eklundh can’t decide whether to wander through cowboy dives with bluesy passages or rather to blow up into ‘the third dimension’ with improvisation.
From here the album only gains in social mockery and toxic bite, while the band gets pulled further and further into improvisational madness. »(Saving Up For An) Anal Bleach«, where Freak Kitchen, amid brutal guitar passages and foaming-at-the-mouth singing, make fun of modern social pathos, in which money is saved up for all sorts of lunacy; in this song’s case, for assorted plastic surgeries to crudely satisfy modern sexual standards. In the middle section Eklundh comes up with a cheeky guitar improvisation, while scattered rhythmic flashes, crowned with a mocking chorus, don’t let up until the end of this witty sonic satire.
The far more subtle »Private Property« features a hellish riff, an intelligently led melody and a melodic chorus, while Freak Kitchen this time mock the capitalist standard of private property, which lost all meaning long ago, if it ever had any. »Mathematics of Defeat«, where demonic guitar distortion once again dominates, also has a lovely melody and a gentle chorus, bringing to the surface the band’s rarely seen subtle side, though Mr. Eklundh doesn’t ease off his crazy guitar variations for a second. The anti-war lyrics deliver a sharp, biting jab at recent Western military adventures from the viewpoint of a naive soldier who doesn’t get that he’s merely a victim, a chess piece in the calculating game of the ‘fat cats’ in ‘high’ politics, religion and business.
The fun hard rock and funk mishmash »I Don’t Want to Golf« thumbs its nose in the lyrics at one of the favorite sports of the modern bourgeoisie, i.e. capitalist politicians, bankers and executives. This time the vocal approach has a slight funk flavor, which fits nicely with the rhythmic pulse of yet another track where Eklundh pulls a twisted guitar improvisation out of his ‘pocket’ at the end. »Hide«, loaded with refined arrangements and a fair variety of guitar effects, even has a pinch of soul when it comes to the guitar harmonies, making it one of the most subtle moments on »Cooking With Pagans«.
On »Come Back to Comeback«, muddy guitar passages and furious drum transitions rule, while what impresses most this time is the outstanding vocal variability. The lyrics make fun of the Western obsession with eternal youth, while Eklundh repeatedly ‘experiences’ wild improvisational freak-outs. The same goes for »Ranks of the Terrified«, rhythmically one of the fastest tracks on the album, with ‘supersonic’ guitar variations, but which still has a melodic chorus with a strong socially critical edge. »Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan«, where Eklundh and his buddies, while building dramatic vocal harmonies, mock the excessive conformism of the Scandinavian countries toward the ‘world police’, which is nothing compared to what’s been going on in ‘Slovenistan’ in recent years, is the ambient climax of the whole album.
Somewhere deep in a Gothenburg forest, three sonic pagans led by a whirlwind of a guitar madman cooked up »Cooking With Pagans«, one of their most provocative and bonkers achievements to date. All their devotees will grin contentedly while listening to the individual tracks, and even after they’ve taken the album out of their player, at the fact that Freak Kitchen aren’t letting up one bit with their satirical butchering of the modern neoliberal social order, with all its more or less negative by-products, while the sonic mix of fantastic technicality, shrewd arranging and improvisational wit stays at the expected, jaw-dropping level the whole time.
Video for the song “Sloppy”:
Lineup
Mattias IA Eklundh – lead vocals and guitar
Christer Örtefors – bass guitar and vocals
Björn Fryklund – drums
Production
Mattias IA Eklundh
Track list
1. Professional Help
2. Freak of the Week
3. Sloppy
4. Goody Goody
5. (Saving Up For an) Anal Bleach
6. Private Property
7. Mathematics of Defeat
8. I Don’t Want to Golf
9. Hide
10. Come Back to Comeback
11. Ranks of the Terrified
12. Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan
